30 Quotes by Sofia Samatar

All through my journey his stories had fallen like snow. He was as full of them as a library with unmarked shelves. He was a talking book.

Words are sublime, and in books we may commune with the dead. Beyond this there is nothing true, no voices we can hear.

A book,” says Vandos of Ur-Amakir, “is a fortress, a place of weeping, the key to a desert, a river that has no bridge, a garden of spears.

The silence had a depth to it, like the stillness after a bell has been struck and the echoes have died away, and one waits for what has been summoned.

Ravhathos called the life of the poet “the fair and fatal road, of which even the dust and stones are dear to my heart,” and cautioned that those who spend long hours engaged in reading or writing should not be spoken to for seven hours afterward.

I want to stay there. I don’t want to go any further. I want to stay. I can’t remember who it was – one of the poets, perhaps Tamundein – who said that all of our happiest hours must pass away at last, even those in which we believe we are unhappy.

The tunneling entrance curves before it opens into this space and there is absolute, waiting, coiled, and sentient blackness.

The word for “book” in all the known languages of the earth is vallon, “chamber of words,” the Olondrian name for that tool of enchantment and art.

There is enough cruelty in the world,” she told me softly, “to justify all the music ever made.